On April 13, 2004, Jordanian security forces foiled an al-Qaeda plot against the nation’s intelligence agency. The plot, reported on April 26 by Agence France-Presse (AFP), involved a plan to use trucks packed with 20 tons of chemical explosives, including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents. Jordanian officials estimated that had the attack been successful, the amount of chemicals involved had the potential of killing up to 80,000 people.
Six members of the terror network which planned to execute the plot were arrested and four others were killed in a series of raids in Jordan which concluded on April 20. The ringleader of the terror network was a Jordanian, Azmi al-Jayussi. Jayussi had been recruited for the operation in Iraq by al-Qaeda leader Abu Massab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was identified by Jordanian officials as the mastermind of chemical weapons plot.
According to a Jordanian security official interviewed by AFP, “Jayussi started to plan for the operation in Iraq where he had moved to from Afghanistan. He received direct orders from his leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, to whom Jayussi had pledged allegiance and absolute obedience since he met him in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.”
In a taped statement, Jayussi related how his first encounter with Zarqawi had been in Herat, Afghanistan, and how he later connected up with him again in Saddam’s Iraq. He stated that it was Zarqawi who had trained him in the use of “explosives and strong poisons.” Excerpts of Jayussi’s taped statement, which were aired on ABC’s “Nightline” on April 26, 2004, revealed that the planning and training for the WMD plot took place in Iraq more than a year before the US-led coalition invasion.
In Iraq, Zarqawi introduced Jayussi to another of his Jordanian followers, Muwafaq Adwan. Muwafaq was killed in a shootout with Jordanian police in Amman on April 20. Jayussi told Jordanian security officials that Zarqawi had ordered Muwafaq and him to Jordan where “[o]ur mission was to instigate military work” in the country.
In Jordan, Jayussi was aided by several Syrians under Zarqawi’s direction. The aim of their operation was to attack Jordan and its ruling family as part of a “war against crusaders and infidels.”
Anti-terror experts said that the network’s 20 tons of explosives would have caused “two explosions: a traditional one and a chemical in an area of two square kilometers.”
“The chemical explosion would lead to the emission of poisonous chemical gasses which would have caused physical deformities and direct injuries to the lungs and eyesight,” said one of the experts on a Jordanian news program. “Outside this circle, the human loss would amount to around 80,000 people dead and 160,000 injured.”
To fund the operation, Jayussi said that he received the equivalent of $170,000 (US) in installments from Zarqawi, sent through messengers, most of them from Syria.
Another arrested suspect, Ahmed Samir, told Jordanian security that he had been trained in Iraq by a Zarqawi aide and worked on explosives for two months in a factory in Ramtha, near the Jordanian-Syrian border.
(Comment: News of this foiled plot should have provided conclusive proof that what President Bush feared, and which justified the effort to take Saddam down, was real – that Saddam allowed the operation of terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda, within Iraq, and that terrorists trained in Iraq and supplied with a significant quality of WMD materials from Iraq, could have international reach. News of this foiled terrorist plot to use WMDs in a spectacular attack in Jordan received scant attention in the US media. While ABC’s “Nightline” carried the story, and similar stories appeared in articles published in the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, the American news media did not give this news the significant level of attention it deserved. The news media’s mantra is that the failure to find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq is a scandal that rests on the head of George W. Bush. “Bush lied!” The real scandal here is the failure or refusal of the American news media to report and pursue events which give credence and justification to President Bush’s policies in Iraq.)
"On April 13, 2004, Jordanian security forces foiled an al-Qaeda plot against the nation’s intelligence agency. The plot, reported on April 26 by Agence France-Presse (AFP), involved a plan to use trucks packed with 20 tons of chemical explosives, including blistering agents, nerve gas and choking agents. Jordanian officials estimated that had the attack been successful, the amount of chemicals involved had the potential of killing up to 80,000 people."
Excellent find!
Got a link?